Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Dark Roasted Weirdsville

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.
- Robert Bulwer-Lytton

1912 was a rather eventful year: New Mexico and Arizona became states, The RMS Titanic hit a iceberg and sank, The Girl Scouts were founded, the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Giants, and Lionel toys produced and sold the very first slot car set.

While the present generation has thoroughly moved into the digital age, for millions of people before them slot cars were a cherished feature of childhood. For a few wonderfully eccentric hobbyists, they are still the next best thing to climbing into turbo-charged reality, smashing the gas pedal down, and roaring into the thrill of the race.

I am an artist the track is my canvas and my car is my brush.
- Graham Hill
For those unfortunate few who never had the bliss of assembling the track, picking just the right car, and squeezing the little plastic control and sending that same perfect car flying out of control across the rec room carpeting, slot cars are mechanically very simple: the track – which is modular, allowing an almost infinite number of configurations, from the Monaco Grand Prix to Germany's Nürburgring – has two power strips and the cars have fickle brushes to pick up the power, and a neat little electric motor to make the wheels go 'round.
But it's what those already-mentioned eccentric hobbyists have done with that simple concept that is truly staggering: from cars that are exquisitely detailed and painstakingly reproduced from high-performance reality to tracks that run from exact scale copies of legendary circuits to totally insane fantasy, slot cars have become the medium for an dazzling amount of creativity.

Anything happens in Grand Prix racing, and it usually does.
- Murray Walker If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.
- Mario Andretti
Why does a track have to be just loops and hammerheads and all that? Here's a really fun and unique approach to racing: a hill climb!

When you talk about brilliant track designs, though, you have to talk about the beautiful, and commonly considered most impressive, slot car track in the world: James-Michael Gregory Harlan's White Lake Formula 1 track. Taking over 3 years to complete, the track is the ultimate racing circuit in a very convenient smaller scale.

It is amazing how may drivers, even at the Formula One Level, think that the brakes are for slowing the car down.
- Mario Andretti

Even though they may be small in stature, that doesn't mean the slot cars can’t be ... well, 'immense' doesn't quite fit but you have to admit the track that was created by journalist, and Top Gear presenter, James May for his wonderful BBC series Toy Stories, has a huge amount of WOW power: ladies and gentlemen, auto enthusiasts of all scales, the world's longest slot car track!
If you don’t know James May and his Toy Stories show you really should: determined to reintroduce 21st century kids to his own beloved childhood hobbies, he – with the help of the great British public – created and assembled a full-size model Spitfire, a Meccano bridge strong enough to support a man, a Lego house big enough to actually live in, an entire garden made out of Plasticine (and enter it into the Chelsea garden show), then a ten mile long model train track.

But the episode we're interested in is the one done as a celebration of Scalextric (the British slot car manufacturer) as well as the legendary Brooklands racetrack. Using planning that rivaled putting on a full-scale Grand Prix, James created a 2.75 mile long track that followed the original race course. When it was finished, the flag was dropped and two teams – one made of slot car enthusiasts and one of just local folks – blasted at scale speeds towards the finish line. But since it wasn't possible to power the entire length of the track a relay system had to be used, so as the car passed from one section of track to the other someone new had to take control.

James May(life size) posing with Scalextric cars (smaller scale).

And if you think that all this is a bit too whimsical -- that slot cars are fine and dandy for crazy stunts or seriously dedicated hobbyists -- then take a look at the following designs for public transportation systems, all of them using the same basic idea of our beloved childhood toy. The slot car is not just racing in miniature, a venue for art and eccentricity, but it's actually become a plan for the future of transpiration.

Welcome To Weirdsvlle

Love Without Gun Control

Calling M.Christian
versatile is a tremendous understatement. Extensively published in science
fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and even non-fiction, it is in erotica
that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, with more than 400 stories
in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian
Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and in fact too many
anthologies, magazines, and sites to name. In erotica, M.Christian is
known and respected not just for his passion on the page but also his
staggering imagination and chameleonic ability to successfully and convincingly
write for any and all orientations.

But M.Christian has other
tricks up his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and
respected anthologist, having edited 25 anthologies to date including the Best
S/M Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock
Holmes Erotica; The Burning Pen; The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, and The
Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden
of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and many more.

M.Christian's short
fiction has been collected into many bestselling books in a wide variety of
genres, including the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer
collections like Filthy Boys, BodyWork, and his best-of-his-best gay erotica
book, Stroke the Fire. He also has collections of non-fiction (Welcome to
Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica); science fiction,
fantasy and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and erotic science fiction including
Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, and the acclaimed
Bachelor Machine.

As a novelist, M.Christian
has shown his monumental versatility with books such as the queer vamp novels
Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science
fiction erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay
horror/thrillers Fingers Breadth and Me2.

M.Christian is also the
Associate Publisher for Renaissance eBooks, where he strives to be the
publisher he'd want to have as a writer, and to help bring quality books
(erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out into the world.